Fuels refinery

Valero Port Arthur Refinery

Premcor Refining Group Inc. (operating subsidiary of Valero Refining Company / Valero Energy) · Valero Energy Corporation · Port Arthur, TX

Operating PADD3 heavy sour upgrading diesel petcoke

Aerial view of the site Imagery: USDA, USGS The National Map (public domain)

bpd crude capacity · EIA 2026: 385,000
pipelines it injects into: 4
delivery points reachable: 58
terminals on those points: 111
events on record: 4

Capability

Crude distillation 385,000 bpd operable, 385,000 operating (EIA-820, as of 2026-01-01). Downstream units below, barrels per calendar day.

Conversion — makes gasoline and diesel from heavier oil

Catalytic cracking (FCC)	73,050
Hydrocracking — gas oil	124,350
Delayed coking	142,440

Upgrading

Catalytic reforming — low pressure	50,870
Vacuum distillation	220,000 sd

Treating — meets sulfur specs

Hydrotreating — diesel	104,600 sd
Hydrotreating — kerosene & jet	33,000 sd
Hydrotreating — gasoline	90,000 sd
Hydrotreating — naphtha / reformer feed	58,000 sd
Hydrotreating — heavy gas oil	60,000 sd

Production capacity

Alkylates · 20,000 Petcoke market · 52,325 Sulfur short tons day · 2,178

Crude slate

Heavy sour crude: Canadian oil sands (WCS), Mexican Maya, and increasingly Venezuelan heavy crude as sanctions have eased, per East Daley Analytics; the 2023 coker project specifically increased Valero's ability to upgrade heavy, high-resid slates.

Crude in & products out

Direction	Mode	Route	Point / origin	Products	Source
crude in	marine	Sabine-Neches Waterway Deepwater channel access shared by Beaumont/Port Arthur refineries.	Waterborne imports (Venezuelan/Mexican/Canadian heavy sour, per Valero disclosures)	crude	source
crude in	pipeline	Nederland to Port Arthur crude pipeline RBN Energy states Nederland terminal has direct pipeline connections to the Valero and Total Port Arthur refineries in addition to Motiva and ExxonMobil Beaumont.	Nederland Terminal (Sunoco/Energy Transfer)	crude	source
crude in	pipeline	Keystone Pipeline Keystone/Marketlink barrels reach the Nederland hub; the Port Neches Link spur was purpose-built for Motiva specifically, so a direct Keystone-to-Valero-PA connection is plausible via Nederland terminal blending/redelivery but not separately confirmed by a Valero-specific source.	South Bow Keystone Nederland Delivery Station	crude	source
products out	truck rack	Valero LP refinery rack Refinery-direct truck rack; self-evident for an operating Valero refinery of this scale.	Refinery site	gasoline distillate	source

Pipeline reach

Pipeline	Injects at	Delivery points	Terminals	Lowest ¢/bbl	Median ¢/bbl
Explorer Pipeline	Port Arthur (Jefferson County, TX) same city	31	31	96.30	334.80
Enterprise / TEPPCO	North Port Arthur (Jefferson Co., TX) - interconnect with Enterprise Refined Products storage same city	15	58	204.70	351.08
Magellan Midstream	Port Arthur / Port Neches, TX (via Explorer) same city	9	19	603.88	686.75
Colonial Pipeline	Port Arthur Products Station same city Port Arthur Products Station / Total tie-in Port Neches (FERC 3.33.0) same city	3	3	20.13	26.39

Substitutes

Other refineries injecting into the same pipelines — the supply that could backfill an outage here.

Events

2026-09 outage
Power outage following storm Edouard hit the Port Arthur refinery; smaller AVU-147 crude unit was shut and the larger AVU-146 CDU ran at minimum rates. source
2026-03-23 outage
Explosion and ~5-hour fire at the diesel hydrotreater (unforeseen process-fluid release) forced a full shutdown of the 380,000-435,000 bpd refinery; no injuries reported. Partial restart underway through April 2026; diesel hydrotreater rebuild timeline unknown as of late April 2026, kerosene hydrotreater targeted for Q3 2026. source
2024-12 fire
A fire was reported at Valero's Port Arthur plant (referenced retrospectively by trade press covering the 2026 explosion); details of scope/duration not independently found within budget. source
2023 expansion
Valero completed a coker project at Port Arthur, raising crude throughput capacity to ~435,000 bpd and improving heavy/high-resid crude upgrading capability. source

Rates are pipeline line-haul transcribed from published FERC tariffs; every figure cites its tariff and item. Cost to serve (netback) adds origin spot price and destination fees. "Confirmed" links match a tariff delivery point to the facility; "same city" means the point is in the facility's city — plausible, not proof; "per research" means the facility's research profile names the pipeline as an outlet.